Chocolate Zucchini Cake Recipe

Adding Healthy Ingredients Into Delicious Foods

If you know me, you know I have a passion for hiding ingredients in unexpected places. No, I don’t mean stashing a potato in your bed, although that was a running joke with my family for about a week. No one knew where or when the potato would strike again.

I’m referring to adding healthy ingredients like vegetables, beans, and whole grains to foods you wouldn’t expect for them to be in, so you can get more benefits, like increased fiber.

Healthy Recipes With Hidden Vegetables

To be clear, while hidden vegetables are great, we don’t believe that desserts and other baked goodies need to have “hidden nutrition” to be enjoyed. Sometimes a piece of plain old chocolate cake is what you’ll want. But many of our recipes, including our mac & cheese, turkey burger and today’s highlightedchocolate zucchini cake recipe (download our recipe card below) include hidden veggies. I love that I don’t even notice many of the ingredients in this cake, it just seems like a plain chocolate cake. And it’s a great way to use up all the zucchini that’s available this time of year.

Sneak Super Foods Into Baked Goods, Smoothies, Frozen Desserts

Baked goods, especially cake recipes, are a great vehicle for adding nutrient-dense ingredients. I purposely look for baked good recipes (or create my own recipes) that include ingredients such as:

pumpkin

grated carrots

grated zucchini or yellow squash

pureed beans

whole grain flours such as brown rice or quinoa flour

Beyond cake recipes, smoothies and frozen desserts are another place to sneak in super foods. One smoothie I like to make often contains:

1 cup frozen dark cherries

1 small frozen banana

1/2 cup cooked black or white beans

1 cup of milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoon maple syrup

Blend until smooth, adding more milk as needed. If the beans are pre-cooked and frozen and you use less milk, this will have the consistency of soft ice cream.